The overall workflow productivity that users experience will increase substantially with NX 5. In fact a third party benchmark showed NX 5 outperforming all leading competitors in workflow productivity tests. Improvements to core technologies in all areas – design, simulation and manufacturing – are coupled with tools that enhance users’ ability to deploy and use the system. NX 5 introduces NX “Your Way” which allows users to build user interfaces that exactly fit their requirements and grow as their needs grow. In our early trials with customers we have already seen productivity improvements of up to 20 percent, and training times cut in half.
We have also responded to our customers’ growing requirements to work in collaborative networks with supply chains, partners and customers who use a wide variety of CAD systems. To help tackle this challenge we have taken our open standard JT™ format and embedded it right in the heart of NX. This empowers our customers to bring data from other systems into NX and to maximize information reuse without wasting time on redesign. JT technology in NX 5 helped us create the industry’s first Active Mockup capability, which enables engineers to use one product for instantaneous review of design changes in the full context of their total product. By doing this we have moved the mockup process from a passive multi-application review activity to an active, full-context design process.
Our excitement isn’t limited to the design tools. When UGS and SDRC came together a few years ago, we announced our plans to bring Unigraphics® and I-deas® technology together into a next-generation platform, using the best of the best and delivering a solution with advanced power, freedom and flexibility. In previous versions of NX we built a strong architecture for our CAE tools. With NX 5 we deliver the broadest and most capable set of simulation applications available. Customers who have tested their CAE workflows in NX 5 have reported cutting their overall time by half as compared to niche simulation tools. These tools make digital simulation a strategic weapon for delivering products with improved quality and performance.
NX 5 offers greater productivity on the machining side as well. As manufacturing companies increase their investments in the latest machine tool technologies, NX 5 helps them maximize their returns with advanced CAM and machining solutions that take full advantage of complex machining processes. NX 5 introduces “free-flow machining” that optimizes the manufacturing approach based on part surface geometry and delivers higher quality, more efficient toolpaths.
CAD, CAM and CAE are at the core of our long-term strategic vision for PLM. We are confident that NX 5 will deliver new and “greater powers” to design, analyze and manufacture products that will help our customers’ businesses thrive. I hope you can join us at one of our many launch events this week – including the Hannover Messe in Germany, the SAE 2007 World Congress in Detroit, the NX 5 launch in Tokyo and UGS Connection Americas (formerly PLM World) in California – as well as many more local seminars events around the globe in the weeks to come. For a detailed guide to the newest enhancements found in NX 5, including demo videos and a list of worldwide launch events, be sure to visit www.ugs.com/nx5.
